Letter from a Teacher in pandemic CRZYWRTR Dear parents, I’m an English teacher, I usually teach older teens and young adults. I live in a third world country where getting a vaccine is not easy as they are getting here little by little and we need to wait until the government says it’s your turn, and getting the vaccine abroad is not possible with a teacher’s salary. I live with senior citizens thus for I need to be extra careful as not to bring the f… virus home, I’m not killing the people I live with just because I wanted to go with friends, I was able to enjoy a lot when I was younger, and I will be able to do so again once the pandemic has gone. I hear from colleges that paents want their kids to go back to school as soon as possible, that is in places where we are studying online, they don’t care if their kids, themselves, or someone else in their household gets sick or die. BRAVO, they are killing their parents, kids and also committing suicide! I understand that parents are stressed and tired of having their kids at home, they don’t have patience for the kids, and I’m not surprised, they didn’t have patience for them before the pandemic they have even less patience now. NEWS dad and mom, if you don’t have patience for kids, you wouldn’t have had them! There is something called contraception. In addition to not having the patience and being tired and stressed, parents have spoiled their kids to a point in which kids don’t listen to their elders anymore, they don’t respect their parents and expect to be given everything they want as soon as they wanted it, they don’t know how to deal with frustration, they don’t know what working towards a goal is, they don’t know of responsibility. I have seen at schools that every kid gets a medal or a diploma even when they didn’t do their work! What are you prizing? Laziness? Kids need to deal with all emotions, good and bad, they need discipline and responsibility. I have heard more than once from colleges working at schools, especially expensive private schools, that the kid tells them that they will get top marks just because they want it, those kids usually tell the teacher “You have to do what I say, or I’ll get you fired! you work for me!” WHAT A SPOILED FUKING BRAT! And the kid will do everything he can to do good on his word, and parents not only allow that but many times side with the brats, and then they wonder why their kids fail at university. On the other side, we have kids from public schools where maybe the parents work all day and the kids stay with grandparents if they have any kind of supervision at all, yes, these kids won’t tell you they’ll have you fired but they will steal your wallet or your cell phone if they have the chance to. In both cases the teacher and the school are on the losing end, the government’s policies avoid all kind of protection and if the teacher or the school tries to correct the kid, the teacher, the principal, and the school get sued. REALLY?! And when the kids end up being complete failures in life or criminals, they blame it on the school system. Dear parents, look much closer to home. You cuddle and overprotect those kids instead of educating them and give them values. You don’t want them at home anymore and you want them back at school because you CAN’T STAND THEM ANYMORE! And you are FED UP WITH THEIR NONSENSE. Imagine what their schoolteachers feel and multiply it by the number of students that teacher teaches! You are tired of DOING YOUR KIDS HOMEWORK, it’s your kids’ homework, they should be doing it, not you, don’t be an asshole doing the homework and then complaining because you believe YOU deserve a better grade. I value more the ugly paper a kid completes by hand as far as it is the kid’s doing rather than the copy/paste/print the parent tried to pass as the kid’s homework. Doing a copy/paste is called plagiarism and it should be granted the lowest grade possible, that is cheating, and you are teaching your kid that lying and cheating is correct, and they will keep doing it. Young adults fail to land their first job or lose it way too fast, mainly because you, dear parent, did something wrong. AND DON’T YOU DARE STOP READING NOW! Don’t you dare say I’m wrong! You cuddle and overprotect your kid, you went to school and sued the teacher, or got him fired because your blessing wanted something. You didn’t teach your blessing to be on time, work hard, be respectful, and listen to their elders and those with more experience. You chose the TV, the computer, and the videogames to be your blessing’s nanny with no supervision. So, CONGRATULATIONS, you did a great job and made sure your blessing got a first-class ticket to be a failure! I grew up at a time when your parents just needed to look at you and you would turn and silently do what you were told when you had to do your homework because you didn’t want the teacher to call your parents. After all, you would get into double trouble, one at school and one at home. I’m not in favour of physically or psychologically punishing the kids, but they need to learn and understand that their actions have consequences and that some things are “benefits” for their responsibility and good behaviour. That is how the adult world works if you don’t do the job you are hired to do, responsibly and to the best of your capacity you get fired, but if on the contrary, you do what is expected of you, you get to keep your job and your salary at the end of the month and any other benefit your job offers. No job, you go homeless and can’t do much. With a job, you can save money, go on vacations, buy a car or a house, and be more comfortable. So why are you teaching your kid that they only have to open their mouth to get anything they want! I had to do things around the house if I wanted to get something when I was a kid, and it went from watering the plants to washing the family car (badly done by the way, but I would try). We are living with a pandemic, and I see young kids going out with friends to the park, to shopping centres, kids don’t respect social distancing or keep their masks on, they go home, and they don’t wash their hands or shower or change their clothes and like that they hug their grandparents and go to sleep. I have seen neighbours getting sick because of this. Yes, kids tend not to get seriously sick, but they can and will take the virus home. Think about it this way, if you don’t smoke but you were next to someone who was smoking and the smoke hit you, you end up catching the smell and it won’t go away from your clothes, hands, and hair until you wash up. The virus is the smoke, and your kids will take the “smoke smell” home. When we finally go back to school remember the time when you had to be your kid’s teacher, and multiply it by the number of students in your kid’s class, that’s what your kid’s teacher life is like every day, and remember you dear parent side with your kid instead of supporting the teacher who should be your real ally, he or she spends more time with your kid at school than what you do with the kid at home, while the kid is awake. PLEASE remember that the teacher quits spending time with family, with his kids to prepare classes, material, checking notebooks, exams, practices, there are also parent/teacher conferences and other events throughout the year. A teacher sometimes doesn’t eat or sleep well to do his job. As teachers we don’t usually make a lot of money, many teachers don’t make minimum salary. I work at 3 or 4 different at the same place to make ends meet, and I know I won’t be able to buy a car or a house, the teachers you see with a nice house, or their own house are lucky to be able to afford that, most likely their spouse isn’t a teacher and makes a lot more than they do, working at a private school doesn’t mean the teacher makes a lot of money, sometimes it is quite the opposite. Dear dad or mom, PLEASE remember what you read here next time your kid makes you mad, PLEASE remember to thank your kid’s teachers, respect them, value them, and remember how it is to have your kids studying at home. Let me tell you a little bit more about me, and try not to judge, because teachers are also humans. I’m a gender-fluid person, which means that there are days I feel more male than female or vice versa. I’m bisexual, which means I like male and female when I’m in a relationship. I’m single and have no kids. I suffer from social anxiety, one of the many reasons I don’t work at school. I have Asperger's syndrome, which makes me socially clumsy, I was diagnosed as an adult, so my childhood was hell, surrounded by bullies and not understanding why I was different. Most of the things I must keep hidden to be able to get a job or keep it. I have applied to many jobs, and I can’t get the stupid job because they include a psychological interview of some kind, and the things I have just mentioned come up (my therapist always tries to explain the reasoning behind the psychological tests at some jobs interviews and why I possibly couldn’t get the job, and I can’t understand the reasoning behind it all, I’ll be there to do a job). Throughout my life I learnt to mask and hide, as an adult I need to work and pay the bills but keeping the job can be hard and frustrating and it is discriminatory. I have been told I don’t fit a certain job and that they can’t give me a certain position because I don’t seem to work well with others just because during training there was an especially interactive section in which we had to be silly and do things with other people, trust me I do try, but comes naturally for everyone else can be hard for me, they won’t give me the chance. I went to one of the best universities in my country to study education, I got a master’s degree in education. I studied arts. I speak English and Spanish fluently, I understand French, German, Dutch, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese and Hebrew, I don’t speak them because I have no one to practice with but I think I could feel comfortable using the languages fast enough, I don’t read them nor write them thou, I learnt them by watching movies and the news I have never studied languages, but I have a knack for sounds and languages. I have worked hard to master my social abilities and fit into the “normal world” and keep doing it, even when I find it exhausting. I know I will never be able to get a full-time job, a house of my own or a car, but I want to reach the parents out there, I hope you read to the end and take something with you today. Sorry, I can’t give you my name, but it would cost me my job, and most certainly I would never be able to find another in a place like this. Respectfully A Teacher